This invention relates generally to messaging systems, and more specifically to indexing and organizing messages for a user of a social networking system using social network information.
People communicate with each other in an online environment by sending and receiving messages. One area in which large numbers of messages are involved is in social networking. Social networking systems allow users to form relationships with other users, applications, events, and many other objects. Users can then communicate with other users in the social network by sending messages such as electronic mail (“e-mail”) and chat messages.
Due to the vast number of users and objects in a social networking system, a user can quickly be overwhelmed by a constant stream of incoming messages. In addition, messages may come from sources that are outside of the social networking system. It is difficult for a user to determine what messages are important without identifying the source of the message or reading part of the message itself, such as the title or body of the message. Further, a user's mailbox may contain millions of lines of text in tens of thousands of messages collected over decades of use, making it even more difficult for a user to distinguish relevant messages from non-relevant messages.